Far From Me
by xlos
Summary: An alternate ending about the possible death of Luke on Hoth and the reactions of everyone... including his ever-loving family.
1. Far from Me

Far from Me 

Luke felt his life slipping along with his heat into the cool ground. He had no illusions, no doubt that he would die. He accepted it, and all it meant. Perhaps it was death, and perhaps it was his acceptance of it that made him see everything so clearly in those last few moments. He answered the voice he had unknowingly blocked for months, for a lifetime. His father. "I love you." He whispered. He would never have the chance to tell him in person. Then he felt a tug which he'd known his whole life. He'd always thought it was normal; now he saw it for what it was. Leia. He called gently. Please stop crying. I love you. I love you so much. Good-bye. I'll see you when you fade, don't worry. We'll be together again. Oh Leia- One more left. Good-bye Han. This was harder. There was no telepathy to ease the thoughts along. "No kid!" He heard distantly. "Don't die on me! Please!" But it was too late. Luke winced. There was so little time left, but there was someone he'd forgotten. Good-bye Mara. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll never marry you. We'll never have children. I'll never buy you that dress on Corellia, I'll never hear you tell me you love me. And I'm just so sorry. Then there was nothing. Only blackness. "Luke?" Leia said aloud. Riekann turned with a quizzical look. "No- Please! Oh, gods!" With a quick sob, she ran from the room "Princess Leia?" asked Riekann. He tried to stop the knot of loss in his chest. Skywalker, a good pilot, a Jedi, and a kinder person than any he'd ever met, was dead. And Leia knew it. 

Luke? Leia called weakly to the ebbing life force. Luke, brother? BROTHER! She screamed inside, letting the force strong minds across the galaxy know her loss. She wept. She couldn't stop weeping. He was gone, and nothing would ever make that right. 

Vader heard it, felt it. No! this can't happen! Not when he'd never heard his voice, never seen his child laugh. He was barely in his twenties, just a boy. He would have revenge. He would see the planet that had taken Luke's life in ashes. He heard a voice screaming across space. Loss, fury, abandonment pitched in a high cry of mourning. He tried instinctively to calm the speaker, but there was no result. Brother was repeated over and over in a mantra of defeat. He'd recognized it instantly as the mind of his daughter. This was the reason for her cries. She had lost a brother, no, it was more than that. She had lost a twin. 

Father? asked the voice shakily. He sent back warmth and encouragement. Daughter. he acknowledged. Daddy? There was less calm now, and then there was no trace of it, and he struggled to soothe her. Come, get me. I am waiting. I need you. There was a pause. He's gone. He paused, unsure of how to answer. I know. He could feel his own loss join with hers. Then she was gone, and all he could hear was the echo of a cry. 

Mara Jade stalked into the Imperial Throne Room. "Brother?" She asked simply. "Twin." Palpatine replied. Mara nodded. She knew that would cut deeply. Two force-sensitive twins, one left to feel the other die. It was unimaginable. "He's returning with her. I wouldn't be surprised if they raze the planet to the ground." "She's strong enough to join us?" Mara asked. "That message was from the Hoth sector, and she's had no training of any kind." Mara nodded with respect. If that awesome display was totally untrained, the full strength would be absolutely god-like. Truly her father's child. "Would Luke have the power to see the future?" She asked, attempting to be casual without success. "He was as strong as his father." Palpatine answered. Mara took that as a yes. "Did you get receive a message from Luke himself?" She asked again. "No." Palpatine said shortly. "I take it he spoke with you. How would he even know you?" Mara shook her head. "It was odd. He- apparently he had foreseen a future where we were married." At this Palpatine leaned foreword. Mara continued. "He said he was sorry we would never marry and have children. Sorry that he would never hear me say I loved him and I get the strangest feeling he knew what he was talking about." "There are many possible futures." Palpatine said thoughtfully. "Perhaps in the one he glimpsed, you were together. It's a shame he died. Now we'll never know. And what a waste of power. Forget him Mara, and don't mention it to Lord Vader or Princess Vader. The dead should stay so." 

The Executor approached. Leia didn't need to be told, she could feel her father drawing near. She was faintly aware of the rocking of the base. Her door slid open, and Han barged in. "Princess... Look Princess, I know this is difficult for you, but we've got to leave. The fleet is coming. Leia..." To his surprise, she stood and smiled gently. The kind smile didn't reach the mourning in her dark eyes. She walked slowly to the smuggler, then hugged him softly. "I love you Han." She said faintly. "Now forget me. Don't look back. Find someone and settle down. I'm so sorry that someone can't be me. I treated you like I didn't care. I apologize, because I cared so much. He was my brother, Han.He was my brother." He took a step back, shocked. Then he pulled the princess into a firm kiss. "Come with me." He begged. "I can't. Someone else is coming for me. He needs me Han, as much as I need him. Oh, Han. This is the way it has to be. Promise me you'll always love me." Han's shoulder's shook. "I promise." With a last kiss and one more glance, he left. She knew she would never see him again. 

Leia walked. She'd taken no belongings. They didn't seem to matter anymore. She slumped to the ground in the snow, drawing out the torch she'd shielded from the wind. She plucked Anikan's lightsaber from the body, and brought the flame closer. This was her only warmth, but her brother's body would be burned according to what she knew of ancient Jedi custom. She would die before she let anything else happen. Flames fought the wind, melting the snow. Soon there was a blaze that refused to die on the breath of the mightiest winds. 

There was no way to tell how long Princess Leia Organa had sat in the snow protecting the flames. Vader felt her presence before he saw her. Her flowing white robes made her seem a natural extension of the snow covered land. Her skin was the unearthly white of death, but the chest rose and fell softly with breath. Her cheeks burned with small, tight circles of red, and her lips were flushed crimson. Brown hair was dark in against the snow, and eyes that had always gleamed darker than her hair were dead black. She tremored as the snow troopers stepped closer. Vader could see her body was wracked with shivers, and he quickened his steps. Without hesitation he removed his cloak and wrapped it around her. The ashes before them faded out of existence as the snow troopers gasped. She smiled. Luke was safe now with all the Jedi that had passed before them. She stood, and slowly turned towards her father. "What happens now?" She asked, voice so flat it was almost a statement. "You come home." She let out a sharp cry. "And where would that be?" She murmured. "Where ever we decide to go." He answered. She threw herself into her father's embrace, crying openly now. Soldiers stared in awe at this fragile, beautiful girl crying openly in their feared leader's arms as he whispered words of comfortstraight into the privacy of her mind. 

She knelt before him, fastening her hands in a position of prayer. "I swear to serve thy bidding, and that of the Empire. I swear to avenge my brother and kill the Jedi who deceived us. I swear to up hold your name, to fulfill my destiny even when you are gone. All this I swear, as surely as I am your daughter." She was so formal, so afraid, actually doubting that her would accept her oath. The gasps that had sounded when she proclaimed herself his daughter amused him. Someone had spawned the beautiful child before them, and why not this man? Admittedly they appeared different, her a mountain of vulnerability, he a pillar of strength, but who was to say which of them was better? He touched her chin with a soft gauntlet of leather, pulling her up to her feet and raising her chin so that the dark eyes Amidala had given her faced his own concealed sky-blue orbs. "Never bow to me again, Princess Vader. We are equal." Those eyes shone now with the promise of the future. "Captain Solo informed me that Luke mentioned a Yoda in the Degobah System. Our next target?" He nodded. "And our last." She smiled wickedly, raising her father's sapphire blade. "The bastard is mine. You've killed so many, and this one belongs to me. No one keeps me from my family." "That's my little girl." 

Obi Wan's fading specter watched in horror as the troops conducted their Lady, Princess Vader, onto the shuttle to the Executor, the killing ship bound for the last Jedi, where the child of the Chosen One would murder the last Jedi Master with the power of the dark side. The Empire would never be crushed now. And it was all his fault. 


	2. Breath Begging

_  
Leia Vader laid, hands wantonly thrown to her sides, on the cold marble floor of her father's palace. He breathing was heavy as she meditated, focusing on her father's sleek, black meditation pod and the calling darkness within. She existed in the surge of anger the view created. She was Lord Vader's only child, his daughter. He called her his equal, confided in her, comforted her, shared with her, and trusted her explicitly. He valued no one in the entire galaxy's life but hers. Why then? Why had he closed this door? In the year that she'd served the Emperor and her father, he had never allowed her to see his face._

Perhaps he thought her too immature to understand, thought that she would loose her respect or be disgusted by his appearance. Didn't he know that a faith like hers was unshakable by anything? A mere aesthetic didn't matter; she knew he had weaknesses, as did she. Did he not realize she loved him? It hurt, reminiscent of Hoth ice shards, but he had never spoken the token phrase passed between those of deep emotion, never said he loved her. He'd acknowledged pride, and she reveled in that. He complimented her as the owner of a prize examines its assets. How long, if ever, until he told her she was loved?

He loved Luke, she thought bitterly before realizing what she had said. She hardly ever spoke of her brother anymore, or even thought his name. An officer had murmured "Thank the gods she's the only child he has," only a month ago, and she'd to awkwardly escaped the room to sob uninterrupted in the long, gray, hall. 

Her days as angel of the rebellion were over. Her father was an Imperial, and how could anything her father thought be wrong? He would never deceive her. Besides, she'd failed at the task, letting her twin die. If she was ever meant to have that honor, why hadn't she protected him? Why had she encouraged him, helped him study the path of his murders, the Jedi. They didn't care about Luke; they didn't care about anyone save themselves, scornful hypocrites who denied any truth but their own. All they wanted was the rebirth of the precious order, and they didn't care who they hurt to get there. The ordeal had made her stronger, more cunning, less naive. And just as he had promised her, they were together. She still needed him to need her.Her father was her anchor, his opinions, however cold to critics, made sense and saved lives. And who cared what he did? He was human, and though he wouldn't say the words, she knew, or maybe just wanted to know, he loved her. Love made everything right, turned monsters into gods, and turned a hated nemesis into a layered, beloved father.

She straightened mechanically, snapping her legs and arms out and trying a kick that could have hit her astronomically tall father in the mouth, just to be sure she could. A daily hour of exercise ensured that she could defend herself with or without the Force. Then came force training, piloting lessons, tactics, and dueling practice with her father. She'd moved past seekers, and was now using a milder version of his own practice droids. Hard work, all of it, but no harder than the rest of her life, and certainly much more difficult than killing Yoda had been. She smirked. They picked that misfit to run the Jedi? No wonder Anakin left.

The Executor was as much a home to her now as Corouscant. A Mara Jade had been ordered to show her around, explain the latest nuisances of Court politics. She liked the candid, sarcastic girl, felt almost as if she had known her for a lifetime. What was it that connected them? Perhaps it was just there shared Force sensitivity. She absently wondered if Luke would have liked her.

With a last glance at her father's orb, she concluded he was too weary to come out and socialize. With a fond smile, she lay back on the unadorned floor she'd slept on since the Hoth tragedy. Comforts like beds no longer seemed vital. Why encumber herself with something so needless? "Goodnight Father." She whispered telepathically. "Goodnight my daughter." Came the reply. She smiled. He'd never called another daughter, she alone had that power. Father held such meaning to her when she spoke to him, a full moon next to the waning imitation of Bail Organa. With that she slept, thoughts whirling for their audience with the Emperor tomorrow.

Thrawn walked as briskly as always. Almost twelve months ago he'd been called to Corouscant as fast as his ship could speed. Palpatine had commanded a personal audience, and no mission could out prioritize that trump card. The red-cloaked guards parted, and there stood the Emperor in his dark glory, gazing out over the city. Thrawn saluted sharply.

"Come, my friend." He ordered casually. "My Corouscant. The very emblem of the Empire. I never cease to marvel at it intricacies, and yet I know that someday I will no longer be able to watch over it. Corouscant existed before me, but its Empire can not." He turned to gaze at the Grand Admiral intently. "There is a new player in our little game. Her name is Leia Vader, age twenty-two. The Dark Lord's daughter and apprentice. The Empire, as you may have guessed, requires the Force's power to continue. That is how I created it from the ashes of the dying Republic, and that is how it must live on. For reasons you, despite your capability, are not qualified to understand, it requires one of Vader's line, thus this girl-child. Yet I have come to realize that it requires something else. Do you know what that might be?" Thrawn shook his head. In Palpatine's twisted, sanity purged mind, any myriad of possibilities could have been the perfect solution. "You, my friend. We wage a war against decay when we need a war for expansion. She is a prodigal diplomat, gifted in the Force. She had all the stigma of her father, and could be called visionary by the most selective citizens. You supply new territory, she can supply the Empire. You must go beyond jaunts into the unknown territories. You must conquer the universe."

Thrawn looked collected, yet inwardly he was shell-shocked. Palpatine was talking about the next Emperor, and that next emperor being Thrawn. No scheming, no uncertainty, he would rule the galaxy! Yet, if he understood, at his right arm was to be this unknown. He had respect for Vader's policies and gifts, his integrity was unquestioned. Yet whom did that make his daughter? Being in the Unknown Regions, far too remote for broadcast, he knew a bare minimum about her. Of course, as soon as he was in range he'd gathered intelligence about the political scene and learned of her, but she was a new girl, stuck close to her father and wisely revealed nothing about her personality until she could stand on her own, without threat of being a weakness to the man. Of course he knew she had been Organa, but if the apparently unshakable faith in the Rebellion was gone what else was? Her temper wasn't in evidence as she'd coldly ordered the attack on a Rebel shipyard. She'd killed or ordered the deaths of over five thousand of her former comrades, including a Wedge Antilies she apparently knew through a fallen best friend.She had even, in another maneuver, piloted a TIE advance and done spectacularly against a top Rebel squadron. It didn't match up. Who WAS this woman?

Palpatine watched him. "To make something clear, my friend." Palpatine said absently as he strolled to his throne. "She is not you're subordinate. She is your equal. I do not expect an answer today. Aquatint yourself with her, then decide. You may go."

Leia sat in the window, drifting absently a few feet above the velvet seat. She leafed through the old book in her hands. It was novel, decades old that she'd found in a chest of her mother's belongings. She let it drop into her lap, fingering the old fashioned holo she'd found used as a bookmark. Out of date clothing marked it a thirty years ago, at the least. Five women sat in front of a fountain, talking and laughing. If things had been different, she wondered, would these have been the people my brother and I grew up around? Were these the people my parents trusted? She pushed the picture into the pocket of her high collared, mist gray gown and turned to gaze out the window at the jewel like city, each little light a life like and unlike her own. If the Jedi had not been traitors to the Force, if things truly had been different, would there have been an Empire? 

Thrawn coughed. Leia snapped her head around and drifted down to the cushion. In one economical move, she swung out her legs and was on her feet without even a mussing of her delicate gown. "Pardon me my lady, did I disturb you?" he asked. Her eyes blazed. "That was needlessly rhetorical. It is apparent that was the case, Grand Admiral." She was irritated that she hadn't sensed him, what if it had been a Jedi coming out of the woodwork to murder her? Thrawn cocked an eyebrow. The girl knew him. Unexpected. "Have we met?" "We have." She said, putting a slip of paper into the unmarked book she was reading. Her features were shaped into a merciless, almost frozen composure. She smiled slightly, offering a small hand. "Forgive my rudeness, grand Admiral. I am Leia Vader." She curtsied ever so slightly, so slightly it could have been deemed rude, and he took her hand. He couldn't help admiring her sharp tongue. She didn't seem a diplomat; they indulged in endless courtesies and bureaucratic nonsense. That in itself didn't bother him, it was their damn uselessness, their overall unintelligence, fit to be no more than instruments for his manipulation. Thrawn saw his intelligence as something better used elsewhere, in more productive matters. Still, the maneuvers of politics could be so entertaining. There was a strained silence as she watched appraising him. "Have you seen the newest additions to the art gallery? They're quite impressive." She asked mildly and abruptly. He smirked. So, she was familiar with his peculiarities. 

"I have not. I would truly enjoy that. Tell me, my lady, have you had a chance to view them?"He asked, offering his arm. She paused, as if debating whether to reveal information. 

"Actually, I helped to select them myself." 

"Did you? Do you have an interest in the subject?" As he spoke, a petite woman with hair like crushed rose petals bolted down the hallway. 

"There you are. I wanted to ask if you'd been invited to tomorrow's event." Leia nodded. These were their private terms to ask if they were requested to carry out the Emperor's will. 

"I'm planning on attending." as if she had any choice. Leia thought wryly. Mara smilled thinly, like a predator.

"Excellent." Leia laughed. 

"You always do love your work. I've heard it will be impressive." She said meaningfully.

"You worry to much." 

"You, dear friend, don't worry enough. I'll see you somewhere. There are only so many places to hide on this planet." Mara nodded. 

"I know all too well." And she slipped into a passageway as if she had never been there at all.

"So," muttered Thrawn. "That was the Emperor's hand." 

"I wasn't aware you had access to that information." Leia said smoothly but with a bitter edge, as if she didn't think he should. 

"I know a great many things, my lady." Her cold gaze swept over him. 

"We shall see, Grand Admiral."

__


End file.
